Solie's Tuesday Morning Report: EXTRA!

Volume 2, Issue 141March 11, 1997

Solie's Exclusive!

My Trip to SuperBrawl

by Hitman (from the Extreme Sports Network)

For this Special Edition we depart from our regular practice reporting wrestling news to publish this diary of the activities of some of the good friends of this web site. For those of you who don't frequent the Readers' Forum, Hitman is a Provo, Utah radio personality and J-Byrd is his producer - they run an outfit called the Extreme Sports Network and have been resposible for supplying many of the wrestlers' interview transcripts that have been run in this newsletter from time to time.

The following is a detailed report of the trip that Solie's Forum regulars, "The Hitman" and "J-Byrd", went on to San Francisco for SuperBrawl VII and Monday Nitro in Sacramento.

Day 1 Friday 6:30 p.m. Salt Lake City Airport

So here we are, myself the Hitman, my executive producer of the radio show, J-Byrd, and engineer Steve Johnson; hanging out at the S.L International Airport heading to Oakland. We jump on Southwest Airlines and sit in the back. I bump into one of my friends named Henery Lusk who plays tight end for the New Orleans Saints. He sits with us, shoots the bull and talks about Mike Ditka being the new coach. Two beautiful airline attendents named Angie and Andrea flirt with Lusk the whole time when we take off and fly. (By the way Lusk is #88 look for him next year.) Come to find out the two fine women are actually cheerleaders with the Oakland Raiders. THEY'RE RAIDERETTES!!! Go Girls!

We land at the Oakland International Airport,(we landed in Oak town because it was cheaper than San Fran), take the shuttle to the Airport Hilton and crash at the Hotel. We're getting ready for the big radio show at Planet Hollywood the next morning. I feel like a little kid the night before Christmas getting ready of the wrestling radio show.

Day 2 Saturday Morning 6:00 a.m. Airport Hilton

Six in the morning still comes way early for me! We wake up, take the showers, and get ready for the day. We jet from our Hotel at 7:15. It takes 45 minutes to Frisco from the Hotel. We cruise on the Highway, cross over the Bay Bridge and check out beautiful San Francisco. We have a hell of a time finding Planet Hollywood downtown. One loser of a local told us Planet Hollywood was 5 blocks in the other direction. Come to find out later we were a block from the place, and women wonder why we never ask directions. We finally find Planet Hollywood!

It took us an hour and I'm nervous because it's 8:15 and the radio show starts at 9:00. We walk in the door of Planet and I hear a voice that says, "Are one of you guys The Hitman?" I'm thinking who in the hell knows me from Salt Lake City? It's EARL OLIVER!!! I said "Earl, how the heck are you?" Earl had a green lettermans jacket with his name Earl on it, a crockedile dundee leather hat, glasses and jeans. He was a cool dude! We found our location (which was to be a closet, but JBYRD and Steve wooed are way out of there), hooked up our radio equipment, talked to our producers in SLC, and are 12 minutes from game time.(until the show starts) Earl and I, talk about radio and a T.V. gig he had as we got to know more about each other.

It's two minutes before the show, and J-Byrd says "Hitman meet Jimmy Hart". I was so excited! I know it's just Jimmy Hart, but this guy has been in wrestling forever! I've seen him with all of the great tag teams in the WWF, and now with WCW. I enjoyed watching this guy for so many years and now I get to meet him. Yes I am marking out! I asked Jimmy how everything was and we B.S.'d till the show started. He was so nice. He could tell I was busy getting ready for the show and asked if I wanted him later in the show and I said "Hell No!" Then the next words out of my mouth we're "Welcome to the Extreme Sports Network live from Planet Hollywood....." The show had begun. Jimmy looked at me like "wow, you're asking me how I'm doing then you're live?" Yea Jimmy we're Pro's baby! I interviewed Jimmy, he talked about the Dungeon of Doom, (in character) with the laugh and everything. He was a riot. Then Jimmy talked about his days in the WWF. He discussed how he cut the theme music for Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart(when they enter the ring). He's a real life musician on the side. Jimmy became very off the cuff with his statements. He wasn't in character anymore. Anyway we'll have transcripts of the interviews later here on Solie's. Jimmy Hart was a very good person away from the radio. He talked about how he enjoyed the easier travel in WCW compared to WWF. He could do his own hobbies on the side. He was very easy to talk to, and that's what I enjoyed about the Mouth of the South. He took some pictures with us and joked around a lot. Very cool.

Meanwhile JByrd and Steve were hard at work setting things up with Harlem Heat and Sherri, The Sony Playstation tournament had begun and things were hectic but with the aid of Lynn from WCW and Jeanette and Natalie at Planet Hollywood, things just clicked all day long.

We had the crew from Sony on the show, they were very cool, but I was looking forward to to talking to Earl, Sherri, and Harlem Heat, all in the final 40 minutes of the show! We made the interview with Sony quick, then ladies and gentleman may we welcome thee man Earl Oliver to the big show!! Earl definitely knows his wrestling. We talked about the progression of wrestling, especially in the 80's with the WWF. We then talked about the present state of wrestling. Especially the battle's between the big two federations. We concluded our talk with the SuperBrawl card. I got a kick out of talking with a guy who let us talk smack on HIS website! Earl is very down to earth and is a very intelligent wrestling fan. Let's face it folks, other than half of you on this site, there is a lot of hillbilly wrestling fans. Earl is a professional guy that loves the sport we all do.....pro wrestling.

Next on the show it was Sister Sherri! Now before I interviewed her I came with the pre conceived notion that she was some kind of wild, slutty, loud mouth. HOW WRONG I WAS!!!!!! Sherri shocked us by being very sweet, very soft spoken, and VERY PRETTY! She had a little make up on, her hair was down, and to be honest, I didn't even recognize her. She talked about the good ol days, and you can read the transcripts here on Solie's a couple of days ago. Sherri gave me a big hug after the interview and took a couple of pictures with me. She said we would meet up after SuperBrawl and play pool with her. I was excited! She was totally nothing I expected, actually totally opposite! Very sweet lady, who almost seemed like a mother type figure.

15 minutes left on the show and Harlem Heat was on. These guys were a riot! They high fived me before the show, asked how everything was going. I said great! They said not for long and laughed. THEY JUMPED RIGHT INTO CHARACTER on the big show. They we're ripping me, Called my boy J-Byrd, Boy George, and we challenged them to a tag team match! It was great! They we're so into their gimmick I was laughing and crying at the same time. Everyone in radio land thought J-Byrd and I we're going to die before the interview was over because we we're talking smack back and forth. Two things if you ever interview these guys, never comment on Stevie Ray's footwear and don't ask them about there contract status nasty. After the interview I was whooped by Booker T in a sony playstation game. He was talking smack the whole time. It was great. Stevie Ray and Booker T are huge in person! They have gigantic arms and pecs! They're legit bad boys. Out of character they we're very cool, taking pictures with us and signing autographs. All in all everyone was too nice! It amazed me that these "pro" athletes we're so courteous to EVERYONE. It spoke volumes to me about the entire WCW.

Outside JByrd and Steve were taking some pictures, and visting around when JByrd spots Doug Dillinger while Steve and Jimmy Hart are posing for a picture. Yeah maybe JByrd is a liitle strange, because he marked out and screamed, "Dude your Doug Dillinger" then proceeded to force him into the picture with Jimmy and engineer Steve. The Playstation tournament would not have even been a mention here except in the course of finding out who won, we find out it is a guy from Ogden, Utah which is where we all went to school together. I'm suddenly hearing an annoying little Disney song in my head. Weird!

After some hanging out we decide to have lunch at Planet Hollywood. Nothing too spectacular here we just got ready to see the sites later that afternoon. So engineer Steve thinks he's Tiger Woods or something and is beyond excited that a new Niketown has just opened two blocks from where we are. We decide to see what this is all about. Outside of Niketown is roughly 1000 people chanting "Hey Hey Ho Ho, Niketown has got to go." Yes the day we decide to go to Niketown there is a protest as to Nike's labor practices overseas. So that and the 2000 people in line to get in convinced us to head elsewhere.

So with JByrd in the lead we take a cable car from downtown to Fisherman's Wharf. There is really only one story you need to hear about this, because for the most part we just did the touristy things. After some shopping and constant hassling by street performers we were waiting in line for the cable car back to where we were parked. A juggler, if you could call him that, that we nicknamed Gunther was dropping nearly everything in sight when a loud man began to yell NWO IS IN THE HOUSE BABY! Well of course we were slightly intrigued. JByrd catches his eye and flashes him the nWo sign in response. He immediately began to yell NWO, NWO, while getting ready for his performance. You see this man was yet another street performer and his name was escape man. Yeah you guessed it, this wacko puts on a straight jacket and chains himself to a light pole so as to escape to the admiration of the onlooking crowd. Pleeaase! He did say however that earlier he had seen Trillionare Ted in line and instead of dollar bills, Ted gave him four tickets to Superbrawl. We finally drove home and all crashed early for some much needed rest.

Sunday Day 3

It's SuperBrawl VII baby! The show starts at 3:30 pacific time so we jet about 2:00 from out hotel. We get to the Cow Palace at 3:15. We pull up the security gate and flash them my press pass. The dude at the gate says "Your late, drive over there to there, sing, sing, something, something, no presurre no hype, sing, sing, sing, you get the picture.

So we pull up to this huge fence, and the security guy pulls open this gate and we drive IN THE COW PALACE WITH ALL OF THE OTHER WRESTLERS CARS. We are like Holy S*$#! This is great! We park our car, walk in and the first person we see as we get out of the car is Mean Gene. Steve says howdy Geno. He gives us the Mean Gene smerk and nods. We walk back stage and there's Rick Flair on the telephone! We try to be cool, but it's damn hard. We're trying not to mark out. So we hang out back stage. J-Byrd is arm length away from Eric Bischoff! I want J to throw Coke at him, but that would be a bad idea. We see Ted DiBiase, Jimmy Hart, Hugh Morris, Mike Rotundo, and few other guys getting ready to go on for the earlier cards. Jimmy comes over and says "Good to see you guys again, you need anything?" We said no thanks we are doing great. He says see you after the show and does his thing. Doug Dillenger comes over and says you have your passes? We show Doug, he finally recogninzes us and let's us chill.

The show's ready to start so we take our seats near the ring. We sat on the right side of your t.v. wear all the wrestlers enter. Needless to say the photos we took were better than the WCW's Magazine. You can check it out next Friday in our Photo Gallery at our website. They're great. We watch the show, yelling at everyone, taking pictures, and being way out of control. It was an amazing PPV. It was an electric atmosphere. Something I can't describe. You just had to be there! Everyone heard about the matches so I won't go into detail about them....they we're all great!!!! So we go backstage after the show.....I see DDP leaving with us wife, the Diamond Doll, Kim. She is amazing! I've never seen Sunny in person, but fellas Kim is the most beautiful woman in wrestling! I hope she comes back soon. Anyway DDP remembered me and said "what's up Hit?" I said nice job bro, can I get a picture before you run with your wife? Page said yes, but there's only one way to take a picture with DDP.........Yep you guessed it, IN THE DIAMOND CUTTER BANG!!!!!!!!!! The picture is killer!!! Check it out in the photo gallery next weekend. I've go to tell you a story about DDp's exit into the crowd at Superbrawl. A very cool security guy named Mike told us DDp needed to stop and get a beer before heading backstage, so he jumped in the beer line at the concourse and got some brew. And you wonder why this guy is so huge eith the crowds. DDP wanted to spend some quality time with his wife so I didn't get to chill with him that much, however.................

THIS IS THE HIGHLIGHT OF THE TRIP!!!!! After the show, Sherri, came over asked us how we liked the show...we loved it! She said "Do you want to come hang out with everybody at a bar?" HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM, YEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS! She gave us the address to the bar and we were there dude! The Clarion Hotel has a bar and just let me tell you who was there...Let's see we walk in and There's The Giant, hey there's Rey Mysterio Jr, of course out of costume, There's Ric Flair, There's Mean Gene, hey there's Hulk Hogan, oh that's Scott Hall, there's Syxx with his arm in a sling, there's Eddie Guerrero hanging with Chris Jericho, I see Mongo with Debra at a table with Elizabeth. They are both hot, I'm talking about the ladies not MONGO! There's Sherri shooting pool, hey J-Byrd your buddy Doug Dillenger is chillin with Ted DiBiase, Kevin Sullivan is laughing with Arn Anderson and Jacqueline. La Parka is there, he needs the mask trust me. Villano IV, Konnan, etc.

It would probably be easier to list who wasn't there, but whatever works. While we try to get up the guts to mingle I notice the TV champ Prince Iakaea chillin' with himself. I introduce myself to him and we sit down at a table and talk about wrestling. He tells me about everything inside the ring and out. I wish I could go into detail but I can't so I won't. 4 hours later after talking with the Prince, I decide to get up and play pool against Sherri, Eddie Guerrero, and Jericho. You know I'm not a fan of either Eddie or Chris, but after meeting and talking with them it's hard not to a fan of those two. They where so cool and so courteous it was unbelievable. By the way Dean Malenko is there with his incredibly hot girlfriend. Had to throw that in. I found out that night that wrestlers can consume an amazing amout of beer! Unbelievable amounts!!

Piper came down and was having drinks with everyone...it was classic! I talked with a former WWF star who is with WCW, and this is what he said about the comparisions between the feds. Vince is very good with making up gimmicks.....Bischoff is good with angles. Bischoff creates and changes some storylines sometimes an hour before showtime!!! He said that is GOOD and BAD! That's what makes EB so successful or foolish, and in the same breath that's what makes Vince so good yet behind the times too.....Vince doesn't stray away that much and sometimes you need too to make your product more successful. Very Interesting indeed. I have to laugh when I hear rumors of what will happen because some of the wrestlers have no idea what will happen until that night. Iakea was told that Lex would turn NWO at SuperBrawl and instead it was Macho. Very interesting indeed.

J-Byrd spent a lot of time talking with a guy named Andre, he is revamping the look of WCW. Costumes, sets, logos everything. J-Byrd says that the Blood Runs Cold thing will be kind of Mortal Komatish but the costumes sound very cool. Even Willie the Wildcat is getting a facelift. By the way in case you have'nt heard Adam Bomb will not be NWO or 4H he is the centerpiece of Andre's Blood Runs Cold. And his costume is so cool that Bischoff has stolen the helmet for his getup so as to display in his office. Rumor has it he wants to wear it while riding his Harley into Sturgis for Hog Wild. He also talked about Sting's new getup which if some of the idiots out there who throw beer on NWO guys would stop you could see is phenomenal. Sting is only wearing the duster because he doesn't want some mark to ruin his new threads. So if any of you can convey this message to those involved, please consume your beer. It is a beverage, not a projectile!

Andre seemed full of ideas and the character development and at least the showmanship of WCW is going to greatly improve here in the next few months once this NWO angle begins to slow down. If you want to see some of Andre's work check out his website at http://slaughter.net/AFX. We called it a night but it was amazing talking with different wrestlers. It was like a kid being in the middle of a candystore. It is every wrestling fans dream and WE had the privelage of living it out. It was tremendous.

Day 4 Monday Nitro

We had great time, the fans in Sacramento where great! We held up the "J-Byrd" for life sign that was on the tube which many of you saw. It was a tremendous live show. We B.S.'d with the Prince before and after and same thing with DDP. There's really nothing more I can say about the Nitro show that I didn't say about the PPV. Except we had even better seats and were often mistaken by those in the crowd around us as security, nuff said. It was amazing and myself the Hitman, J-Byrd and Steve O had the wrestling trip of our lives and you can read about it!!! If you want to email me about any of the wrestlers do so. There's much more to say but I'm too tired to write! It was the trip of a lifetime......and the only thing to say is J-BYRD'S ARMY FOR LIFE!!!!!

I'll be back tomorrow with the mid-week edition including The EYE on WRESTLING and the History of the Midnight Express: Part 7. Until then...

Anyway, that's the way I see it...

Earl Oliver, editor Solie's Wrestling Newsletter

(Editor's Note: If you have found anything I have said here to be particularly offensive please read this disclaimer).

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